Josh Peck to stand down as Labour group leader to adopt a child (and backs Biggs for Mayor)

There are some press releases that take your breath away; some in a good way, some bad. The following falls into the former category.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Councillor Joshua Peck announces he won’t seek selection to be Labour Mayoral candidate in Tower Hamlets and endorses John Biggs

Labour Group Leader Councillor Joshua Peck announced today (Sunday) that he would not be seeking the nomination of the local party to be its Mayoral candidate in the 2014 election, and would stand down as Labour Group Leader as soon as a candidate is selected in April.

Cllr Peck said he was standing down because he and his partner Laurence had just been approved to adopt a child and he would need to focus on this for the foreseeable future, leaving him unable to put in long hours as Leader of Group and a potential candidate for Mayor.

He said he was proud of his two years as Leader of the Labour Group, and listed campaigns to save Rushmead One Stop Shop from closure and to prevent deep cuts to the borough’s advice centres, as well as ensuring the expulsion of Labour councillors who had repeatedly broken the whip, amongst successes.

In doing so, he endorsed local GLA Member John Biggs as his preferred choice to be the Mayoral candidate, saying that he had the experience, the integrity and the record of public service to win the election and govern the borough for all of its residents.

He confirmed he would continue to serve as a backbench councillor for Bow West.

His full statement read:

“I won’t be seeking the Labour Party nomination to be its candidate for the Mayoral election in 2014 and will stand down as Group Leader as soon as a candidate has been selected by members.

“I have taken the decision for the best of reasons: my partner Laurence and I have just been approved to adopt a child and I need to be able to give that my full time and energy.

“I am immensely proud of what we’ve achieved as a Labour Group in my two years as Leader. From running campaigns that saved Rushmead One-Stop-Shop from closure and forced the Mayor to back-track on swingeing cuts to the Borough’s vital advice services, to hosting job skills training sessions, we have demonstrated time and again that even in opposition Labour makes a positive difference to people’s lives in Tower Hamlets.

“We have been able to make sure that people are aware of how Tower Hamlets is now run – a dysfunctional administration that seeks to serve its associates and cronies above others, divides our community with communitarian politics, and mismanages the council’s finances to the point where there is now a £44million black hole in the budget.

“I said when I was elected Leader in 2011 that there would be no place for councillors who believed that they could switch between parties for their own personal gain. I am pleased that the Party delivered on that promise, expelling councillors who had chosen to serve in an Independent Mayor’s cabinet rather than work with the party that got them elected. I hope that sends a clear message that, unless people have an abiding commitment to our party and our values, they shouldn’t consider trying to stand as a Labour Party candidate.

“It’s now time for us to focus on electing the very best candidate we can to win in 2014. I will be backing John Biggs, our GLA member, who I have known and worked alongside for over 15 years. He is by far the most experienced candidate, with a track record of delivering success for the party, for example in winning the Council back from the LIberal Democrats, in fighting the BNP and in a whole range of housing and transport campaigns. He also has a strong record of serving the people of our borough with total integrity and commitment, in a way that has built respect for him across our community. I am clear that he is the strongest candidate, which is why I will be supporting him.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me within and outside the Party for the last two years. The 26 councillors I have worked with are a talented, dedicated and determined group of people without whom our borough would be all the poorer. Council officers in Tower Hamlets do incredible things under enormous political pressure – I have huge respect for those of them who manage to resist that pressure and maintain their integrity. I know it’s not easy and I hope they know that it won’t always be like this.

“Labour is here to serve the residents of our borough as they face incredibly tough times. I look forward to supporting our chosen candidate as a backbench councillor and working hard to ensure that they are elected in 2014.”

Massive congratulations to Josh and Laurence. I’m told the adoption process, which has taken place outside Tower Hamlets, has happened relatively quickly and much faster than both thought. On that level, the timing in terms of local politics isn’t ideal. Josh has done a good job in difficult circumstances and I think he’ll probably enjoy a stint on the back benches, which will be an alien place for him (he joined Denise Jones’s cabinet immediately after being elected as a councillor in May 2006).

So where does this leave Labour? They have two major decisions to make in the next four months: who will be their mayoral candidate and who will lead the group.

As I wrote in my last post, the closing date for applications is February 22 and the local party membership will vote on a shortlist on April 4. About a month later, the Labour councillors will sit down to elect a new leader.

On the mayoral issue, while selection contests are always described at the outset as “healthy”, the reality is they rarely are. After the shambles and poison of last time, what a signal the party would be sending out if its leading figures, including potential candidates (John Biggs, Rachael Saunders, Helal Abbas, Motin uz-Zaman, David Edgar), were able to settle on one unifying figure before any contest. In that world, John Biggs could be the only choice, a man who is respected across all sides.

However, in the real world that’s not going to happen. Politics is about positioning for the next job, and selection contests are ideal arenas in which to raise one’s profile and tap on the door of power.

Clearly, the mayoral selection vote will have implications for the group leadership contest. If one of Cllrs Saunders, Abbas, uz-Zaman or Edgar were to win, it would be amazing if they then weren’t voted as group leader.

But what if John Biggs wins? He’s not a councillor so he couldn’t lead the group, but he could attend all its meetings as the overall boss leaving the council chamber work to nominated deputy/caretaker leader. He’d have a difficult decision to make at that stage, with his choice probably having to satisfy the Bengali/white/male/female paradigm.

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23 Responses

Congratulations to Josh on the great news.
I am sure he will find becoming a father a much more fulfilling and rewarding experience than his current preoccupation.

I tend to think it’s unlikely they’d go for John Biggs as mayoral candidate.
The Labour Party will be keenly aware that London already has (if you count Johnson) four white men as executive mayors, and it would look a bit unedifying if they were trying to take out the one BME mayor and replace him with another white man. Five white men as mayors wouldn’t be very representative of a city as diverse as this.

How strange that Josh hasn’t mentioned the law suit between him and Aman Dalvi?

This regards the saga of the chief exec appointment. Mr Dalvi passed the independent assessment and was accepted to the final interview, but when he was offered the job, he was then vetoed by the Labour Party under a whipped vote.

That was an expensive bit of politics. The £100k payout would be big enough for Josh to have to sell his house, if the the council hadn’t picked up the tab.

“Council worked so hard to promote its policy to have a workforce to reflect the community.”

What twaddle. This is just reverse-racism. There’s no overriding imperative why TH therefore must have a BME Chief Exec, any more than there’s some overriding reason why it must have a white one. The case against Dalvi for Chief Exec isn’t the colour of his skin, it’s the fact he’s in the pocket of Lutfur and the IFE.

I’ve never met her, so I have no idea what she’s like. But the law suit said that she was assessed by an independent panel and put forward as suitable and qualified for the job.

Unless Lutfur has mysterious eastern powers that you and I can’t comprehend, then it is what it is.

She got the job and Josh used the Labour party to stop the appointment. This was under the guise of politics, but I’m baffled if I can grasp the political gain he hoped to achieve. She’s just an officer.

Surprised you give that former advisor to Ken Livingstone a mention here for such an important role?
She will get on the shitlist (Oop’s, sorry, shortlist) because she fits the ethnic cum gender cum bengali portfolio. Come on now Ted, you do not seriously consider her as a strong candidate that could ever possibly offer us residents and form of true leadership now, do you? Knowing her cuniving skills, she will no doubt position herself with the front-runners as a potential Deputy or Cabinet position at the very least. That’s what it’s all about with her and her over-inflated ego!
Good Luck to Josh, not for costing us taxpayers six figure sums, but for success in adopting a child. However if I remember correctly from Labour party correspondence, those councillors were expelled for breaking a party rule by the party, not for joining the Mayors cabinet, and they have not switched parties, they remain independants.

However, looking at the longer political game. The Labour Party will continue. LR is unlikely to ever be a political force beyond TH. What is £100k when LR is planning to spend a stunning and truly insulting 700k on “his office”. Interesting times are upon us. Could the IFE/LR group get a supporter to lead the local labour group? Will AD now try get the top job again? will he donate this reported 100k to the local food bank – retuning tax money to the people?

I’d have thought there would be more of a focus on this bit of Josh’s statement:
‘Council officers in Tower Hamlets do incredible things under enormous political pressure – I have huge respect for THOSE OF THEM who manage to resist that pressure and maintain their integrity.’
The implication is that such officers are far from the entirety – interesting that Josh should wait until he steps down to launch such an attack on the integrity of the borough’s civil servants.

The reasons behind him leaving aren’t even interesting even if you believe the alternative explanation. I’m glad to see he’s given his support to John Biggs who has the best chance at beating Mayor Rahman. I hope Labour group have the sense not to let this drag on and replace him quickly to avoid a vacuum.

Ted you mentioned some really obvious replacements like Rachael who would be fantastic and David. However, selecting somebody new at this stage would be pointless. They’d take months to find his or her feet and authority and considering the closeness of the election it would make more sense to select Abbas, or Denise Jones who have both done the job before and are substantial figures in labour group.

Having had more time to dwell upon this situation, I have become more the wiser?
Commendable to hear Josh’s reasons of adoption being the reason for standing down but I don’t just quiet buy that. I mean, it’s not as if Josh is going to adopt a new born baby that requires fragile personal care such as feeding milk, baby food etc. Good luck to him but more likely to adopt a grown up child so he can continue with his job and career which I doubt he is about to just drop altogether!
Josh has stated he will not be seeking nomination for Tower Hamlets Mayor but instead back John Biggs. However, One should wonder whether this means if Biggs wins this mayoralty, then Josh will go for London Mayor and receive the blessing of Biggs? Well atleast as GLA member for City & East if not anything else. That why, Josh can then employ his entourage of advisors giving the likes of Denise Jones and a certain Keith a new breath of politics to continue with. Afterall, those two hate Biggs and this would be a consolation where no other opportunity exists for them.
Of course just like former Tower Hamlets Cllrs. Clare Hawkins, Diane Johnson and the likes of former minister Ruth Kelly, Rachael will surely be rewarded with a career at Westminster, probably along with Josh. Not your typical working or middle-class, east-end product. More a product of aristocracy, not exactly the socialist former councillor Stephen Becketts of our world!

What a shame that even good news stories get tainted by the nest of vipers (even by local government standards) that is Tower Hamlets politics.

Congratulations to Josh and his partner on the adoption approval. I have little doubt that it will require a lot of work on their part and he’s right to stand down to focus exclusively on making it work. At the very least adoption, whether of a baby or a child, involves significant changes to the way of life (which birth parents have nine months to prepare for and still don’t know what’s hit them once the child is born). Furthermore these days the children who are up for adoption or fostering come from backgrounds of tremendous difficulty which will often have an impact on their behaviour, adding to the stresses facing the new family.

I sincerely doubt that Josh would even consider going for London Mayor: outside Tower Hamlets he’s hardly known. And how Josh or Rachael can be considered aristocracy I don’t understand.

And I’m thoroughly confused about the allegations about the CEO selection. Who, exactly, is Josh supposed to have vetoed with the allegations about subsequent costs? I thought it was Aman Dalvi and that there was some justification in the veto. Yet the comments above suggest that it’s a woman – are we talking about that awful one who works for Lutfur again? In any event I find it hard to believe that Josh managed to manoeuvre another council into giving him adoption approval in time to coincide with these allegations.

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